DEV Community: William Boakye

How I Decided A Bootcamp Was Right for Me

William Boakye — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 18:36:54 +0000

Background:

27 Years Old
Born and raised in South Florida
Majored in International Relations
Worked in retail since I was 17

I had always wanted to be a developer. As a product of the MySpace era, I was alive when you could copy and paste an HTML snippet and BAM - glitter trickling down your page. That was middle school. Senior year in high school, I still had that same sense of curiosity about the tech world, but when I saw the math requirements for a CS major, I made a hard left towards an international relations degree. I was never a mathlete, and I was positive that if I attempted it, I would be setting myself up for failure.

Fast forward nearly 8 years and there I was an assistant manager at a department store. I wasn’t doing anything particularly special, or exciting with my life. I still dreamt of being a developer. Reading all the self-starter success stories kept that dream alive and going. At the end of the day, though, I wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Like most people staring down the task of learning how to code, I had become stuck in an endless loop of YouTube tutorials, and what I like to call ‘yo-yo learning.’ I’d be working, and suddenly something unpleasant would remind me why I hate the industry that I work in. I’d go home, sit in front of my laptop and start scouring the internet for coding tutorials. I’d be on the path to retail liberation for about 3-4 weeks, and then slowly but surely, I’d lose my drive and move onto some other, more pressing, personal interest. I had done this for a few years. I’m sure it was even a new year’s resolution, or two.

Ultimately, I was restless, and that sense of restlessness eventually drove me to do what most would say is out of my character. I joined the Air Force Reserve. If you haven’t caught on by now, I’ve never been the type up for spontaneity. I’ve never been one to take leaps or risks, but I was sick of the life that I was living and needed an escape.

I’ll spare you the details of Air Force basic training/tech school (if any of you are interested message me), but what I got from it was a release from my own personal shackles. Going through it was rough, and for the most part you couldn’t pay me to go through it again, but in all honesty, you can’t have growth without discomfort. I left a brand-new person with a whole new sense of ownership over the direction of my life. When I got back, I gave myself one month (could have been two weeks) to decide.

The Decision

I could:

Continue taking online courses, developing my own personal curriculum, and count on myself to not lose interest or get discouraged (I’d been ‘yo-yo learning’ for the past few years – never getting past beginner status)
Enroll into a local university or community college. It would be a more structured approach but also major financial burden and a commitment that could potentially last a few years.
Enroll into a coding bootcamp. A bootcamp seemed more structured and directed than self-learning, and less of a financial and time commitment than a traditional university or college.

I took that Goldy Locks approach and settled on a bootcamp.

The process of selecting a one wasn’t terribly difficult. Here in the Miami area, there were 3 main bootcamps at the time (this was around 6 months ago, and a few more have spring up since then), all separated by price and tech stack (languages and technologies).

Bootcamp A:
Ruby on Rails / Full Time / 10 weeks / $15,000
Bootcamp B:
Node.js / Full Time / 9 weeks / $11,500
Bootcamp C:
Python/Django / Part Time / 16 weeks / $9,000

Bootcamp C, 4Geeks Academy (highly recommended), seemed an easy choice for me. What originally caught my eye was that they were teaching Python. I already had some familiarity with, it comes with a huge community (think Pycon), and there are tons of applications for it outside of the web (machine learning, game development, robotics). On top of that, it was cheaper and part-time. I didn’t have to completely stop my life to enter the traditional bootcamp bubble.

After making the decision, I sat on it for about a week for absolutely no reason. THE MOMENT I realized my old ways were attempting to sneak back in (no exaggeration), I went to the 4Geeks Academy website and applied for the next cohort which started about a month and a half later. The moment I pressed send, something changed in me. I kept thinking, “This is it, I’m all in.” Even though I hadn’t started yet, from that day forward - this is important: I ATE, SLEPT, AND BREATHED CODE

What I Did To Score My First Dev Job BEFORE Finishing My Bootcamp

William Boakye — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 04:51:19 +0000

If the tech community is a forest, I am but a sprouting sapling.

The Job Search

Pretext: I began searching for a little after halfway through my bootcamp. I’ve read everywhere the number one thing that holds junior developers back from finding a job is feeling like they lack the skills to apply. If you know HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript, YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO START APPLYING. Let employers be the ones to tell you no, because if you’re the one doing it, you’ll never get that job. At the very least, you gain some valuable interviewing experience. You’ll definitely need it. Coding interviews take a degree of skill that can only be gained the same way you learned how to code.

Here’s what I did:

1. Linkedin:

For some reason, I was resistant to LinkedIn at first. While I understood what it was for, I didn’t fully grasp its scope or the concept behind it. The power behind LinkedIn is the concept that getting hired isn’t about what you know but who you know. A lot of times if you’re out there on the job search it’s because you lack the necessary connections in the industry you want to enter. That’s sums up the general barrier to entry. The only way to get connections is to make connections, and that’s where LinkedIn comes in. Once you finally update (or make) your LinkedIn profile, don’t just leave it and expect it to land you in the interviewer’s seat. Make sure you’re on there connecting to everyone you know or kind of know. I’ve heard arguments on both sides for adding people you don’t know too, but I chose not to do that. I would also recommend getting LinkedIn Prime. It’s a pricey $30 a month, but the first month is free. I canceled before the month ended.

2. The Job Apps:

I used them all. Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Dice, Monster. I applied to at least 5 posts a day, usually around 10. It seems like a lot, but it becomes addictive after a while. A lot of listings asked for an amount of experience that I didn’t have, but I didn’t let it stop me. I got a few responses here and there, but nothing of substance until I started using them in conjunction with LinkedIn. Out of the 10 or so that I applied to, I chose about half that I felt I had a real shot at. I took to LinkedIn to do as much research as I could on them. One thing I took a particular interest in was the employees that worked there. My goal was to contact one person per night and build a human connection organically (this is where making connections comes in from #1).

At the end of the day, you have to remember that on the other side of that job listing is a person, and people hire people they know, people they like, and people who have been referred by people they know and like. Your goal is to become more than words on a resume, even if its just slightly more.

I would choose that one person based on this priority if there are multiple in the category, I'd chose the person I was least removed from (chose the friend of a friend vs the friend of a friend of a friend, it’s the number that appears next to their name):

Already established connection
(doesn’t matter if you loosely know them or if you’re best friends)
Someone from HR
Someone with the same job title you’re applying for
Someone in the same general field as you
Anyone who works there, preferably the one least removed from you.

That initial message can be tricky, maybe even a little awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. Here is the general template I used to follow for myself, obviously switching up depending on who I was talking to (some say its most important to customize the cover letter. I’d argue that this is the step requiring the most of your attention):

Hey _______,

I'm reaching out because I saw that your company ________was looking for a [job title], and I was considering applying. I wanted to see if you could give me more of a feel of the company culture, as well as the culture of the development team. I also wouldn't mind hearing a little about your experience working there. I noticed that we both went to a coding bootcamp (I went to 4Geeks Academy) and now I'm in that "applying" phase, but I really want to make sure the places I apply to are a good fit. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

[Name, email, phone number]

If it was someone from HR or a CEO, I’d add that I had been following the business for a while because of [some random quality of their business] and I jumped when I saw they were hiring. Regardless, I made sure not to make it sound like I was begging for them to get me an in, but rather that I was just looking for a conversation. I want to say I had about a 60% response rate. I got the majority of my interviews from those conversations. This is the message that got me in front of my to-be employer.

3. A PORTFOLIO

As soon as you can, do what you can to throw your best work together into a portfolio. If all you have are some tutorials followed along with throw that on there. Just make sure you personalize it a bit. The goal is to not make them look like you ripped it off of YouTube. If you are using tutorials, though, I’d avoid posting the generic beginner projects (calculators, to-do lists, etc). One day I had gotten tired of continuously getting turned down because I didn’t have one and I just spent a weekend piecing it together. Ironically, it’s the first thing my to-be employer asked me for when we sat down for our interview. Believe me, the sigh of relief was audible. Here is my portfolio for reference: http://williamboakye.surge.sh

4. Slack

No matter where you are, there’s probably a dev slack channel in your area. Many of them have a specific room for jobs, or people just throw them into the main channel. Keep an eye on those. I managed to find a (short-lived) internship that way.

The Interview

Once I managed to get myself in front of an interviewer, I did everything I could to charm their pants off. Remember, people hire people they like. Person A might be more skilled than person B, but if the interviewer felt more of a connection with person B, human nature is going to play a roll in person B getting the job. Most people don't see themselves as charming, but everyone has their own personal brand of charm. Charm doesn't necessarily have to be charismatic, wide-eyed, and chipper. Personally, I'm anything but that. Stay authentic to yourself and your charm will be deafening. As soon as I could, I tried to tactfully introduce some (appropriate) humor into the conversation. An interview is a very human interaction and, your biggest opportunity to build a necessary connection. People like people who can break the ice, and relieve the tension in the air. Make the conversation memorable and enjoyable. Don't forget to smile, an definitely don't forget a thank you note. The thank you note (email) is your last opportunity to solidify the connection you just made.

Above all, I can’t stress enough how important it is to stay persistent. If you thought the bootcamp was uncomfortable, the job search is uncomfortable AND lonely. There were many times that I thought I was in over my head. Don’t get discouraged by the inevitable “we decided to move forward with a different candidate,” email, or the “We think you might be a little too junior for the position,” response. They will come and they will sting, believe me, but you’ll instantly forget about them as you look forward to other opportunities.

I hope this helped. I tried to write what I would have liked to have read before starting this journey. I’m planning to write a bit on my first two weeks at the job, as well as about my bootcamp experiences. I love to share so please if you have any questions feel free to message me or reach out to me on Twitter: @BoakyeTweets.